It seems to me the anti-lanes cohort is actually two (mostly) different groups.  One group hates lanes because there are bugs.  The other group hates lanes because the feature is different from layers.
 
My experience is that I use to hit the bugs and haven't hit them recently, now that I have a very consistent work flow.   Nonetheless, there are bugs and they ought to be fixed.  I don't think anybody disputes that.
 
But on the "I hate lanes because they aren't exactly like layers" is a different matter.  I never used layers, but the lanes feature seems to work very sensibly and easily.  What's the big deal here?  What doesn't work as well as layers?

I do my best to speak of my own experience with Sonar.
 
I'm not trying to play any games here, simply voicing an extended discomfort with some changes the Cakewalk company made and while I believe that if they haven't been working on it already, this thread isn't gonna get it into X3... But when decisions are made relative to the current status of the feature set as they approach the official completion/release date, it helps to mention the things that have not become acceptable with workflow change of some of their users...
 
And many who are here use Sonar in professional (business) situations where time is money and slowing a users workflow (even after a reasonable time to adjust to the latest paradigm) gets old fast for both the User and the Client!
 
Keni
 

cparmerlee
It seems to me the anti-lanes cohort is actually two (mostly) different groups.  One group hates lanes because there are bugs.  The other group hates lanes because the feature is different from layers.
 
My experience is that I use to hit the bugs and haven't hit them recently, now that I have a very consistent work flow.   Nonetheless, there are bugs and they ought to be fixed.  I don't think anybody disputes that.
 
But on the "I hate lanes because they aren't exactly like layers" is a different matter.  I never used layers, but the lanes feature seems to work very sensibly and easily.  What's the big deal here?  What doesn't work as well as layers?

...and there at least a third group who really don't care which it is as long as I can work the way I need to... Tho I am currently managing to work this way using Lanes, it was far easier/faster and less frustrating for me than Lanes are...
 
As I mentioned previously, If they add a toggle to make Lanes appear within a track space instead of below it, change the zoom rules to be more in line with the rest of our zoom tools, and fix the blatant bugs such as not being able to copy/move data from/to Lane destinations on occasion.... I'd be fine with Lanes... I use so little of the lanes controls that the button sizes barely ever bothered me in Layers and even with the huge note space for each Lane, I doubt I've used them more than a handful of times and not typically more than a word or two written... Yet they take the lion's share of the control area and Cakewalk Freezes the zoom at 2x height...
 
Even the way it is.... If they changed the zoom situation and made the track height go to 1x when Lanes are open as well as some color change or such to make them more quickly distinguished from track controls (my eyes get lost right now) I could even live with that tho it would still feel wasteful...
 
So tho I didn't want them when they were mentioned prior to Cakewalk's implementation (found similar issues with other such softwares) and still don't, I would be a much happier camper for sure...
 
I just want to get back to working on my music without software frustration a constant nag.... 8.5.3 was already that way for me and the reasons to continue to move on from there is also due to matching with the evolving hardware/os world that is always with us...
 
I love many things we've received since X1 was released... as well as found things that I don't like and learn to live with. But that's because I never had better (for me) and I did with Sonar.... so I simply want that back....
 
Keni
 

cparmerlee
It seems to me the anti-lanes cohort is actually two (mostly) different groups.  One group hates lanes because there are bugs.  The other group hates lanes because the feature is different from layers.
 
My experience is that I use to hit the bugs and haven't hit them recently, now that I have a very consistent work flow.   Nonetheless, there are bugs and they ought to be fixed.  I don't think anybody disputes that.
 
But on the "I hate lanes because they aren't exactly like layers" is a different matter.  I never used layers, but the lanes feature seems to work very sensibly and easily.  What's the big deal here?  What doesn't work as well as layers?

Good observation.  I, for one, was looking forward to Take Lanes when it was announced.  It was one of the features I was most excited about.  I envisioned a matured version of track layers.  Just taking what we already had and making it better.  It seemed simple enough in theory.   Layers were ok, but I always felt like there was a lot of room for improvement and when they announced Take Lanes I thought for sure this was finally it.   It never occurred to me that it could be a step back.   I was honestly shocked that it was so buggy and poorly implemented.   I'm even more shocked that it's been that way out of the gate and Cakewalk has sat by and done nothing about it. 
 
As for what doesn't work as well as layers, they definitely should have incorporated the "remove empty layers" type of feature for lanes.  Also there's the issue of the excessive amount of screen real estate lanes can take up b/c of the arbitrary lane heights.  Even though I'm not part of the "I want layers back" crowd, those are a couple of things that came to mind right away.

Silicon AudioBut, as a person that records multi-tracked acoustic drums, take lanes are my one big problem with X2.  If I could pay for an upgrade that would address this, I would drop the cash in a second. 

I agree completely. I find take lanes work ok generally for single miced takes with discrete sections and breaks,like a lead vocal. But for drums it is far too difficult to work with for the reasons already described. For the most part the issues are not bugs, just poorly implemented ideas. I find layers (while not perfect) to be much easier to work with, and after many hours of struggling with X2 I usually go back to 8.5 for tracking and editing drums in particular. I wonder if anyone who uses take lanes for drums finds them useful?

SteveStrummerUK

KeniI love many things we've received since X1 was released... as well as found things that I don't like and learn to live with. But that's because I never had better (for me) and I did with Sonar.... so I simply want that back....

This ^^^^^ absolutely Keni. I just don't understand why some folk can't grasp (or won't grasp) this extremely simple concept. To these people - just imagine for a minute that there's a feature of SONAR you really like. It works perfectly the way it has for many versions and fits in with your workflow perfectly. And then it's changed, in one fell swoop, so you don't have that feature any more. And the 'new' way is more cumbersome and fiddly, and you can't work the same way or as quickly as you did with the previous feature. I'll bet you would really love it when others tell you how much they like the new feature.    

Ain't that the truth!

Keni

sven450
But delete unused layers?  Yes please!

I still don't understand why people feel this is such a high priority.  How many lanes do you typically have open at a time?
 
Don't get me wrong, I would use that command if I had it, so I'm not saying it is a bad thing.  This would protect me against accidentally deleting a lane that still had some material in it.  But I generally know where my babies are, so to speak, because I only have 3 or 4 lanes open at a time.  Do some people keep many more lanes open?

cparmerlee

sven450But delete unused layers?  Yes please!

I still don't understand why people feel this is such a high priority.  How many lanes do you typically have open at a time? Don't get me wrong, I would use that command if I had it, so I'm not saying it is a bad thing.  This would protect me against accidentally deleting a lane that still had some material in it.  But I generally know where my babies are, so to speak, because I only have 3 or 4 lanes open at a time.  Do some people keep many more lanes open?

I'm sure this is part of the issue. I'm not always recording rehearsed performances and often using looping to assist in the creative process where I might do 12-30 passes at a given part... Not unusual here at all... I'm searching and creating and rehearsing all at once! ;-)

Why make such an issue of it? As said in many earlier posts about this... The work efficiency and flow I was able to achieve in 8.5.3 is now gone and I'm forced to deal more with the UI than the music... Constantly!

I also save many such tracks after cloning and compositing in case I feel I wishi to go back to the takes later on... Hard drive is plentiful and cheap!

Keni

Usually what I do (when I dare to use Lanes) is Ctrl+Left Arrow until I see the entire song (or zoom out). Then I can see if any lanes have anything in them, and I simply click the [x] on each one, but I can see where a global remove of unused Lanes could be useful.

cparmerlee
I am curious how others are using (or trying to use) the feature.  It never occurred to me to have a button to clear empty take lanes because I never have 4 of them.  Are other folks using many more take lanes?  How long do you keep those multiple takes in your projects?  In my case, I always bounce "the winners" down to a single clip so I only have multiple takes for a short time.  I surmise my use is a lot different from others'.

I use layers (and would use lanes) for 10 takes of most guitar parts (sometimes 30 takes!).  Then I go back and choose or comp the best takes, often copying and pasting.  In addition, I record two mics on a guitar cab on separate tracks plus a DI track.  So now I'm talking 30 lanes per guitar part (or up to 90) to audition and comp.  I'm a uber-perfectionist, but that's how I was able to work with layers, and that's why I want a well-functioning lanes system that can be adjusted to a smaller height and won't flip out when I copy/paste into three lanes at once.

For the folks that claim the Mute and Solo buttons in Layers are too small. They are. That should have been fixed. Heck I bought upgrade after upgrade hoping someone at Cakewalk would figure it out and make it happen. But it didn't happen.
 
When I work with Layers in SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition I simply select any clip I want and hit "Q" to mute or unmute.
 
When I want to "solo" some other clip I simply grab the clip that is not solo'd and grab a muted clip I want to solo (they are usually adjacent so I do it with one swipe of my H.I.D.) and hit "Q".
 
When I want to do it to clips in multiple tracks I just have them grouped and it goes SUPER FAST... select 2 clips and press "Q".
 
I do it on the fly during playback. My guests comment about how fast it is.
 
I'll be depending on SONAR 8.5 for as long as it works.
 
It is easy to see how stinky SONAR X2 Take Lanes are just by looking at screen shot.
 
Reading about people's first hand experiences confirms that Cakewalk successfully took an old boring idea that other DAWs are stuck with and half baked it into a total mess.
 
Layers make SONAR 8.5 special. The poorly imagined implementation of take lanes makes SONAR X2 especially undesirable to me.
 
I doubt that Cakewalk has the nerve to flush its bad idea and restore one of its best ideas. The operation seems to have decided it knows better than the customers who actually use its product. The results seem capricious, whimsical, and ill advised. The confidence displayed by the fact that it would actually charge money for such a botch job suggests to me that customers have no say in the matter.
 
 
 
best regards,
mike

When cakewalk added layers in sonar 4 I thought they did a really good job. They were very useful with the mute tool for comping. The only bug I ever encountered was every once in a while clips would move to random locations during certain editing procedures. It was very had to pinpoint when or how this happened. Not sure if this bad behavior was in the original release of layers or if introduced in a later release. But for whatever reason it was something Cakewalk never got straightened out and a lot of people became vocal about.

Of course this is just my opinion but I think this is a great implementation of comping and where I expected cakewalk to be by this time after having a comping feature since roughly 2004...
http://www.youtube.com/wa...e=youtube_gdata_player

That is very powerful, yet extremely simple. There is an elegance to the way you preview the part you want to hear, selecting individual parts, creating multiple comps to preview, display of comped part in main track and the implementation of cross fades.

Layers or lanes, what ever you want to call them, need to make comping quick and easy. You don't need any other functionality in there like envelopes etc (except clip level gain and pan may be useful). That is a track level function.

I always thought the old track layers were poorly implemented and useless, because I couldn't name them or mute or solo them. The new system is way better. The only problem I have is that I can't use the zoom tool on them, so I have to use the zoom slider instead. Otherwise they work great.

mike_mccue
For the folks that claim the Mute and Solo buttons in Layers are too small. They are. That should have been fixed. Heck I bought upgrade after upgrade hoping someone at Cakewalk would figure it out and make it happen. But it didn't happen. When I work with Layers in SONAR 8.5 Classic Edition I simply select any clip I want and hit "Q" to mute or unmute. When I want to "solo" some other clip I simply grab the clip that is not solo'd and grab a muted clip I want to solo (they are usually adjacent so I do it with one swipe of my H.I.D.) and hit "Q". When I want to do it to clips in multiple tracks I just have them grouped and it goes SUPER FAST... select 2 clips and press "Q". I do it on the fly during playback. My guests comment about how fast it is. I'll be depending on SONAR 8.5 for as long as it works. It is easy to see how stinky SONAR X2 Take Lanes are just by looking at screen shot. Reading about people's first hand experiences confirms that Cakewalk successfully took an old boring idea that other DAWs are stuck with and half baked it into a total mess. Layers make SONAR 8.5 special. The poorly imagined implementation of take lanes makes SONAR X2 especially undesirable to me. I doubt that Cakewalk has the nerve to flush its bad idea and restore one of its best ideas. The operation seems to have decided it knows better than the customers who actually use its product. The results seem capricious, whimsical, and ill advised. The confidence displayed by the fact that it would actually charge money for such a botch job suggests to me that customers have no say in the matter.   best regards,mike

Hi Mike...

Much the same with me tho in different situations...

When I heard people asking for lanes to replace layers I kept wondering why would they want a system that's been improved upon with layers in Sonar.... Now it feels to me that in their current implementation, they prove to me how unique and cutting edge layers really are/were... And we now await the "possibility" (in the dark, of course) as to whether they've managed to get the features of both rolled together... Or for that matter whether they've addressed the issue at all...

So tho the wonderful little family that was Cakewalk and so close to its user base is no more... Now the corporate giant Roland seems to be (somewhat expectedly) inflate the distance...

...yet I still want to believe that the message is getting through and that the corporate entity realizes the importance of these issues. Hopefully will will be pleasantly surprised with the upcoming release.....?

Keni

I just can't understand why Cakewalk would throw out a fully developed unique solution.  It was a part of the software which differentiated them from the all-too-homogenous pack of DAW software.  It's not like anyone is going to switch to Sonar from Cubase because Cakewalk tried to imitate Cubase - on the contrary, I believe people are likely to move in the opposite direction.  Cubase's implementation of this is very similar to what Cakewalk tried to do, but it works.  Further, Cubase benefits from having developed their method over time, and that integrity shows when you discover all the interesting things you can do with it.  The old Sonar implementation, layers, offered a similar sense of well-traveled experience and possibility.
 
Another problem with the implementation of Take Lanes is that the button to open/close the lanes is hidden if the track is minimized.  With the old implementation (I'm familiar with 8.3), the button was in the track "header" area, next to the minimize button.  This becomes a bigger problem, because often the track is minimized, but the lanes are not collapsed.  In order to get rid of the lanes taking up space, you have to enlarge the track enough to see the open/close button.  The track header area often has a lot of wasted space in the new Sonar.
 
Clip automation seems really hard to use and having to go to the track area to manipulate clip properties seems counter to good sense.